Thanksgivings Elder Dragon

After two days of scrambling to put together a Thanksgiving to be remebered in Guyuan it was good to fall asleep Sunday night.

Things I would have done differantly.

Skipped the fried chicken. Toned down the amount of mashed potatoes. Eaten less.

It wouldn’t have seemed nearly as Thanksgiving-ish without birds, but there’s enough fried chicken in this town to go around. The chicken turned out fine. The skin wasn’t as crispy as I had hoped but they were juicy enough - but there was no real “wow” factor.

That and the horrors that are 9 kilos of boiling oil. The stove and propane setup was a breeze. As I poured the oil into the large stock pot I noticed that the oil wasn’t an amber color, rather more of a burnt sienna. I tasted a bit of it at the shop and it wasn’t rancid - just dark - and I chalked that up to poor filtering.

25 minutes later I heard the popping and clanking of the hot pot of oil.

Picking up one of the small chicken necks and with a slotted spoon I lowered away into the spitting oil. The satisfying bubbling of the oil engulfed the neck and it hopped off the spoon.

No problem - it will float back up when its cooked - and I looked back towards my slowly growing pile of peeled potatoes.

And then, there, in the corner.

A squat dragon - geysers of steam jetting, hissing violently - reared its head from the pot.

I vaguely heard a potato roll from the pile of peels and bounce onto the cold concrete floor.

My eyes scraped the room. A bowl.

Two bowls.

Brilliant, glistening bubbles foamed over the rim and slid slowy. Menacingly. Towards the shreaking propane flame below.

My hand shot towards the small silver knob atop the propane tank. Twisting.

Imagining red peeling skin and raw bare bones I dipped the bowl once. Steam bit at my knuckles. Twice. Five times full.

The pot handles came into view and, grabbing a handful of towels, I slid the pot off and away.

I slowy stood and cursed the dirty oil. The bubbles had tangled and climbed their way 16 inches up, out and over.

With the excitement over, I concerned myself with the coleslaw, mashed potatoes and gravy.

Fortunately, the coleslaw, gravy and apple pie dumplings were a hit.